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To the surprise and delight of Santa Barbara police and the Coalition Against Gun Violence, this weekend’s anonymous gun buyback at the Earl Warren Showgrounds was declared an unmitigated success. A total of 239 firearms were exchanged for $20,000 in Vons gift cards (and a few thousand more in cash), including 108 handguns, 84 rifles, 41 shotguns, and 6 assault weapons. There were no protesters or unruly participants, and the energetic response has inspired talk of another buyback.

Paul Wellman

A homemade .22 caliber “zip gun” was exchanged for a $100 gift card at the buyback

“It was exciting for everyone involved,” said Coalition leader Toni Wellen, remarking that the event was a chance to show how well the police work with her group and how the law enforcement agency takes efforts to prevent crime, not just respond to it. “They’re super great guys and gals,” she said. Also in attendance on Saturday were Congressmember Lois Capps, State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, and Mayor Helene Schneider. Capps suggested to Wellen that the Coalition expand to North County and organize a buyback there.

Paul Wellman

Police work to categorize and catalogue the collected guns

The majority of participants filled out anonymous surveys after they exchanged their guns, Wellen said, and the results will be tabulated this week. “We gave them a gift card and a cookie and they sweetly went on their way,” she explained, noting some people either declined to take the gift cards or donated the money back to the Coalition. Wellen said that two TEC-9s were turned in, which she said police were happy about as the weapons are especially dangerous and easy to conceal.

Paul Wellman

108 handguns were collected during the buyback

Responding to criticisms that buybacks don’t take guns out of the hands of criminals, that participants are typically law-abiding citizens who don’t pose a danger to the community, Wellen said it’s impossible to tell which guns may have be used for nefarious reasons or in tragic accidents. “A gun could have been used in a homicide or a suicide at the home,” she said, “or it could have been used in an accidental death. There were people [at the buyback] removing guns for exactly those reasons. They were legal gun owners, but some of them wanted to remove the guns as a preventative measure.”

Paul Wellman

An unfired Smith & Wesson Model 25 is slated for destruction

Wellen also said she was pleased with the media coverage the event received. “We are very grateful to the media because the issue of gun violence needs to be in the conversation, and it’s the media that promotes and discusses the subject. It’s very important, and I’m thankful for that and appreciate it.” The firearms will be transported to Los Angeles for destruction at a later date, she said. Before the event, Wellen said last week that if they collected close to 100 guns, it’d be considered a “big win.”

Paul Wellman

A black powder rifle was traded at the buyback

Sgt. Riley Harwood, spokesperson for the Santa Barbara Police Department, concurred that the buyback went off without any major hitches. “It went smoother than expected, and we had a bigger turnout than expected,” he explained. Even before the 8 a.m. start time, there were around 20 cars lined up at the showgrounds parking lot, he said. Many people turned in single guns, but a large amount also brought three or four firearms, he went on. All of the weapons were checked to determine if they had been lost or stolen. Participants, who were mainly in their 50s or 60s, often explained they were giving up guns they inherited or had been left behind by a deceased spouse.

The police collected everything from a homemade “zip gun” to a high-end Deringer to an unfired Smith & Wesson Model 25 in its original collectors box. They also received a black powder rifle, a German Mauser M98 bolt-action rifle with Nazi markings, and a WWII-era Colt .45. Harwood said at one point on Saturday, two men participating in the spa and swimming pool expo taking place at the showgrounds at the same time demanded to see the collected guns. The police denied the request, and the men faulted them for “destroying history.”

Comments

From the article:"…two TEC-9s were turned in, which she said police were happy about as the weapons are especially dangerous…"

Especially dangerous — to criminals — in the hands of a law-abiding, trained citizen defending his home, the very people we are to believe have handed in these weapons (though the article apparently expects us to consider anonymous surveys credible).

These events are widely regarded as little more than public relations stunts for the organizers and sponsors, with little real effect on "gun violence." Note this article from the 'Los Angeles Times':

Perhaps someone with more patience than myself might tackle the jumble of the fourth paragraph of this article, but assuming we are to believe that these weapons are (1) mostly functional, and (2) being turned in by law-abiding citizens, who perhaps purchased them for self and home defense, why is this a good thing?

From the article:“We are very grateful to the media because the issue of gun violence needs to be in the conversation…"

Toni Wellen of CAGV is referring to the local media above, but regarding the national media: I suspect the citizen disarmament movement is also grateful:

With much assistance from the corporate media, that hypes mass shootings (about 100 deaths per year since the 1980s, and currently falling) 24/7 in order to generate copycat crimes in order to increase its ratings in order to earn many millions more advertising dollars, much coming from transnational pharmaceutical corporations (up to 80% of which are criminal organizations, according to the New England Journal of Medicine [ http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/... ]), the citizen disarmament movement — aka "gun control" but, as that didn't work, now being rebranded as "gun safety" and/or "gun reform" as per the directive from its chief benefactor, the illegal gun trafficking [ http://townhall.com/columnists/camedw... ] mentally ill megalomaniac oligarch Michael "the NYPD is my ARMY" Bloomberg — works tirelessly to convince the citizenry, in spite of a plethora of government statistics to the contrary ( simply skim the *article titles* in the two 'RESOURCES' sections beginning about midway down the page here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/S... ) that there is a "gun violence epidemic" and that the solution is for the 100 million US law-abiding and responsible citizens, at least 99.9% of whom will never fire a gun at anyone, to turn in their guns, either willingly or unwillingly.

So we are expected to believe that 239 *functional* firearms ("dangerous" in the hands of law-abiding, responsible citizens) were turned in, and that we are all safer for that, because perhaps a child will be saved from a gun accident (as we are expected to believe that the oligarch Michael "the NYPD is my ARMY" Bloomberg cares about children).

One of the most fundamental deceptions perpetrated by the citizen disarmament movement is to *completely ignore* defensive gun use statistics, which clearly indicate that the good from firearms in the hands of law-abiding and responsible citizens outweighs the harm by a ratio of *from 80 - 250 to 1*.

"According to the National Self Defense Survey conducted by Florida State University criminologists in 1994, the rate of defensive gun uses can be projected nationwide to approximately 2.5 million per year — one defensive gun use every 13 seconds."

SOURCE: The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law

Over 90% of these defensive gun uses *did not require the gun to be fired.*

Considering the *facts* above, I respectfully submit that, rather than "even if only one child is saved," these two scenarios are a more likely result of this gun buyback:

(1) A criminal turns in a non-functioning firearm, and uses the $100 he saves on food as the final $100 his gun fund needed to get a new functioning firearm which he or she uses to commit a mass shooting (in a "gun free" [i.e. guaranteed 100% defenseless victims] zone, of course).

(2) A US military veteran, well-trained in the use of firearms, who owns a handgun for personal and home safety, because he is living in poverty (thanks to how this country treats its veterans), turns in his handgun for $100 worth of food. A month later, he is killed in a break-in by two meth-heads that he might easily have successfully defended himself against.

One of the most fundamental deceptions perpetrated by the citizen disarmament movement is to *completely ignore* defensive gun use statistics, which clearly indicate that the good from firearms in the hands of law-abiding and responsible citizens outweighs the harm by a ratio of *from 80 - 250 to 1*.

SUBSTITUTE:

One of the most fundamental deceptions perpetrated by the citizen disarmament movement is to *completely ignore* defensive gun use statistics, which clearly indicate that the good from firearms in the hands of law-abiding and responsible citizens outweighs the harm by a ratio of *from 27 - 80 to 1*.

Went shopping in a hardware store in North Idaho this morning. Among the hammer and box knifes were about a hundred pistols and fifty rifles. The average price for an "assault rifle" was $275. I thought, why not go back to my work shop and make a couple of zip guns and a pipe shotgun.... Turn around and sell them to the anti gun liberals, then buy myself a military grade weapon and a box of ammo!

The men from the convention were right. The police could be destroying as piece of history. Yet when 500 rounds of 9mm ammo can disappear from the weapons locker, there's no doubt any weapon of signifigance can disappear as well!

Indeed the facts have been distorted. If 239 guns can be taken off the streets and the anti gun nuts are correct in their assumption that "guns kill people"... it's safe to assume that there would be gunfire and dead bodies in Santa Barbara on a routine basis!

I think it would be easier to assume that these guns were likely stolen and/or purchased illegally. Buying these "undocumented" weapons with state sponsored gifts and no questions asked would only encourage more illegal activity.

I was there to turn in a junked out old walmart special for my $100. As noted in the article, the turnout was mostly Old Ladies in Mercedes...Good way to clean out your closet, but not doing much to clean up the streets...In the true do-gooder fashion, the cookies even had raisins...yuck.

*sport shooting: note the 76-second video linked at bottom featuring a very scary 13-year old NRA member

A recent federal purchase order for 7000 AR-15s — by a *domestic* agency, and thus presumably for potential use against US citizens within the US — describes these firearms as 'personal defense weapons.'

So: legitimate *personal defense* weapons when possessed by heavily militarized federal government *domestic* agencies answerable only to the executive branch, but 'assault weapons' when possessed by law-abiding US citizens.

Sslocal, absolutely correct! Here's the thing the anti-gun freaks want you to believe: That putting a pistol grip on a rifle makes it deadly. That's like saying putting racing stripes on a Prius will make it go faster.The ONLY danger with ANY gun is the maniac using it, as with a knife, as with a car, as with a baseball bat, as with a claw hammer.To my immediate recollection, there has only been 1 mass shooting involving an "assault" weapon, that was the idiot James Purdy in Lodi back in the late 1980's.There was also the Aurora, CO movie theater idiot, but his assault rifle jammed due to the weight of the drum clip he was using, then he resorted to a pistol.All others have applied either a hunting rifle or pistols with the Columbine idiots using a Tec-9 machine pistol.There was also the recent shoot up at Santa Monica Community College by the idiot using a stock AR-15, but he had modified clips (jungle style), yes, he got a couple of people, but if he knew how to TACTICALLY use the weapon, it could have been much worse.Most of these idiots, if not all, are not TACTICALLY TRAINED, which is a good thing when these shoot-em'-up-bang-bang tards get a hold of ANY system.The idiots Laughner, Lanza, Rodger, they used pistols (NO! The idiot Adam Lanza in Sandyhook did NOT use the .223 Bushmaster).The anti-gun fatalists need to (I hate using this term, too leftie pc for my taste) educate themselves before making blanket statements that make their cause sound ridiculous.By the way, what's the difference between the 10/22 with the Archangel kit and a Riger wood stocck 10/22? There is NONE! they're both the same caliber, take the same ammo, are perfectly legal within BATF guidelines, the magazine is the same, the ONLY difference being the pistol grip.To the anti-gun loonies, GET A GRIP! Not for your guns, since you don't have any, get a grip on your lack of knowledge, you're sounding dumb and dumber.

Wow, this is a huge disappointment we had one of these in town, though not surprising. This won't prevent crime...all law abiding citizens who are afraid of guns so wanted them out of their house or law abiding citizens who didn't know the value of what they had. Unfired S&W, Nazi markings on another...destroying beautiful machinery and history. This is a shame and it's disgusting our so called "leaders" are proud of this and want to expand the lies. And to call any firearm an "assault weapon" just shows complete lack of knowledge and ignorant thinking. A gun is a gun...a tool to protect freedom.

Bluegrass805 wrote:"And to call any firearm an "assault weapon" just shows complete lack of knowledge and ignorant thinking."

Many of those who rant about guns (rather than the actual causes of "gun violence") are thought to be suffering from untreated hoplophobia [ http://www.gunlaws.com/Hoplophobia-Gu... ]. < A page search (command-F) here for "Feinstein" will reveal that Senator Feinstein is though to be among these sufferers as a result of having discovered Harvey Milk's body.

These people are too fearful of guns to learn anything about them.

Regarding so-called "assault weapons," and expanding from what blahblahmoreblah wrote above at June 17, 2014 at 2:50 p.m.:

"Assault weapon' has always been defined as an *automatic* weapon (of which AR-15s and similar — owned by 4 million or more law-abiding US citizens — are not); such firearms, which cost $15,000 or more, have been *banned since 1934*, with very few exceptions, usually for law enforcement, who must undergo extensive, expensive, and time-consuming background checks.

So the current use of the term 'assault weapon' by political hacks, hoplophobes, and dupes is simply a deliberately provocative and pejorative term that does absolutely nothing to further classify 'weapon' and is used to scare nearly witless those not knowledgeable about firearms. Regarding 'military style', a term also wildly tossed around: it requires zero understanding of firearms to understand the absurdity of limiting or banning something because of its 'style.' More on 'style' below.

Illustrating with an image blahblahmoreblah's point yesterday ("…what's the difference between the 10/22 with the Archangel kit and a Ruger wood stock 10/22? There is NONE!…"):

If one were to click on the link below, and view the bottom two images only: this is the *exact same firearm*, the left with a wood stock, the right with a modern black plastic composite stock and some accessories, none of which increase the firepower:

Setting aside the concept of *need* often incorrectly claimed to be relevant by the oligarchs and elite politicians with zero respect for fundamental *rights*, AR-15 (the initials indicate the manufacturer, incidentally, not 'assault rifle') and similar are simply modern rifles, semi-automatic, as are, I believe, approximately 80% of rifles in circulation.

Regarding the accessories that have been added to the version illustrated at the bottom right of the link above: *none increase the firepower*; the utility of the scope, bipod stand, hand grip, and higher capacity magazine ( incidentally, here's a 2-minute PSA regarding magazine restrictions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature... ) for sport shooting enthusiasts should be obvious.

The collapsible stock makes it easy for the firearm to be adjusted to be ideal for any body size and, to be shared, for instance, between husband and wife sport shooting enthusiasts. Despite the political hacks' claims that this particular rifle is "not needed for hunting" (and, again, setting aside the irrelevance of elite and ignorant politicians determining what citizens *need*), hunters appreciate modern rifles with plastic composite rather than wood stocks (fitted for hunting, rather than, as is the image linked above, fitted for sport shooting), as they are much lighter for carrying around in the woods for hours.

So then: (1) one of the most corrupt members of the US congress, the elite Dianne Feinstein, a hypocrite married to a global arms merchant with her own concealed carry permit and surrounded by armed guards nearly everywhere she goes, (2) along with the mentally ill megalomaniac* oligarch Michael "the NYPD is my army" Bloomberg, with his 17 full-time armed guards poached from the NYPD after NYC citizens paid tens of thousands of dollars training them, (3) along with their wannabes, foot-soldiers, dupes, and astroturf "moms", many of which are suffering from untreated hoplophobia, are demonizing law-abiding and responsible US citizens for owning particular firearms because they're black (the firearms, not the citizens) and 'military style.'

Num1UofAn wrote:"...people making the personal choice to get rid of an object they no longer want or need..."

I've written nothing here indicating that I'm not in agreement with Num1UofAn's sentiment above, so I assume his or her comment is not directed at any of my assertions, and that his or her undefined and pejorative term "gun obsessors" does not apply to me.

If I am mistaken, perhaps Num1UofAn can be more specific by excerpting from any of my comments above.

JohnTieber - nice to see somebody else gets it. Regarding Feinstein, I do think she has a phobia of firearms, but I believe she has a CCW herself yet thinks fellow citizens are not either mentally capable of being safe with such a permit or, the more obvious one, we're not as important as her so we don't need to protect our lives.

Num1UofAn - I'm guessing you're logic stems from my comment? If people do not want guns in their homes, they should take it to an FFL of their choosing, have them sell it for them, and take the cash. Destroying firearms is absolutely ridiculous.

Bluegrass805 wrote:"...take it to an FFL of their choosing, have them sell it for them, and take the cash. Destroying firearms is absolutely ridiculous."

Good point.

The destruction nonsense, in addition to the needless negative impact on the environment (not just the process, but destroying useful life-saving tools [ http://www.noozhawk.com/article/randy... ], the manufacturing of which impacted the environment), just contributes to the widely-held notion that gun buybacks are nothing but public relations stunts.

Thanks to the commentators above who have used actual knowledge of firearms and firearm related issues to attempt to educate the ignorant, such as the leadership and some members (the mayor and legislators) of the "Santa Barbara Coalition Against Gun Violence", who are profoundly ignorant of the facts, especially in light of their arrogant pronouncements about guns and crime that are nothing more than propaganda (aka "lies") soundbites from the various Bloomberg-funded civilian-disarmament astroturf "groups".

I remember many years ago approaching their public "information" dissemination table (in those days known by their prior name, something like "Women Against Guns/Gun Violence" or such) at a public event on the courthouse grounds, and being alarmed at the degree of misinformation, half truths, distortions and cherry-picked disinformation in their brochures. I asked the women at the table if they were familiar with the research of criminology professor Gary Kleck, who happened to be a card-carrying member of the ACLU, and couldn't really be labeled as a "right winger", and thus not subject to having certain possible "biases. Not one of them knew who he was, what his work was about, nor what he (nor other researchers reaching the same conclusion regarding the overwhelming preponderance of defensive civilian firearm uses compared to criminal uses) had concluded about defensive gun uses (DGUs). At that point I realized there was no point in even attempting to have any kind of discussion about the issues with people who were so profoundly misinformed and uninformed. I think they were promoting the Kellermann "43 times more likely" meme that had already been long discredited. I think the organization still uses the same claim. What's the point in talking to such people? (To this day they do not allow any "comments" on their website... I wonder why?)

Keep up the good work all of you who are willing to take the time to be both informed and then to share that information with others in support of our natural civil fundamental individual Constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms.

Then there is that nasty fact that even though guns have always been available to the general U.S. public one didn't hear about schoolyard shootings until about 15 years ago. On a related note, one didn't hear about the frequency of teen age (and sometimes pre-teen age) suicides until relatively recently.

Blaming guns is a convenient way to avoid the underlying issues that are turning our society into a dystopia.